Sense of Touch: Love and Duty at Anne of Brittany's Court

by Rozsa Gaston

  Just as Nicole was beginning to think they were humming farewell to the sweet princess, Claude’s mouth twitched.

  “Come back to us, little one. Come back, sweet girl,” Nicole crooned.

  A sigh escaped the child’s mouth. Nicole prayed it wasn’t the soul escaping the body.

  “Come back, ma chère. Maman has good treats for you,” the queen sang.

  Nicole motioned for the wet nurse to come. If anyone could stimulate the child, she could, with her familiar scent and touch.

  The wet nurse took Claude into her arms, and the others gathered around them, each touching a different part of the little one’s body, which was now unwrapped in order to cool the fever.

  “Papa has a pony for his princess,” King Louis crooned, surprisingly.

  At the deep sound of her father’s voice, the tiny child opened her eyes and stared up at the king. This time, her eyes shone brightly, no longer glazed over with fever. They remained locked on her father’s eyes. At the sight, the queen let out a cry of joy.

  “Bless God,” she exclaimed, crossing herself.

  “Bless God,” Nicole sang out, continuing to stroke the child’s back. It felt less hot, almost normal. Questioningly, she looked at Philippe.

  Philippe stepped closer and put his hand on the princess’s forehead. At the feel of his hand, Claude began to cry—a loud, vigorous, wail of protest. It was the best sound Nicole had heard in ages. Inside she laughed to think it had taken mention of a horse to bring back the girl.

  “The fever has broken,” Philippe exclaimed.

  “Dear God, be thanked,” the queen said.

  King Louis continued to gaze at his daughter, whose eyes remained on his. The love between them was like a lifeline from father to daughter, reeling the princess back to Earth.

  “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” the priest intoned, making the sign of the cross over the child’s forehead. He continued to pray, not with last rites, but for the princess’s recovery.

  “Wrap her in clean, dry cloths and allow no draft in the room,” Nicole ordered. “We will see in the morning if she sucks.”

  The little one closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. This time, Nicole wasn’t worried that she would never again awake.

  “She will be fine in the morning,” she assured the queen.

  “How could you know that?” the queen asked, her eyes searching Nicole’s.

  “Madame, I saw it myself with other living creatures.” She referred to Petard, but the queen might not take kindly to hearing her daughter compared to a horse. “Once the fever is broken, if conditions are not harsh, health returns.”

  “I will stay here while she sleeps,” Queen Anne said.

  “Very good, Your Majesty.” Nicole smiled at her sovereign. The child would sense her mother next to her and draw strength from her presence.

  And so it was that the queen lay down on the bed with her little princess next to her and the wet nurse in attendance, as Nicole slipped out of the room behind Philippe.

  “Praise God,” she said to him softly.

  “Praise God for you,” he answered her then took her into his arms. “And in the morning we shall see if we praise God for the princess’s life as well.”

  Hidden in an alcove of the room next to the nursery, and ready to jump up fully-clothed should the child’s condition worsen, Nicole slept in Philippe’s arms. Neither wished to stray far from the babe, until the next feeding time arrived and they found out if Claude would either suck or take a cup of thin porridge.

  It was close to mid-morning when Nicole awoke again, her head on Philippe’s chest. She rose and slipped into the nursery. The queen was gone, the princess asleep with the wet nurse next to her in the large bed. Madame de Laval stood nearby, her face serene.“Madame—is she—did she?”

  “She nursed just an hour ago. Sucked as if her life depended on it,” Madame de Laval said with a smile.

  “And so it did,” Nicole breathed out. “Thank God she is alive.”

  “She wore out the wet nurse, as you can see,” the noblewoman gestured to the hardy woman sleeping next to Claude on the large bed. “Then we gave her some gruel, and she finished that off too.”

  “Bless God.”

  “Bless God,” Madame de Laval echoed, her smile widening. Her courtier’s mask had dropped, revealing a ravishing smile only a select few were honored to see. Nicole understood why the Duke d’Agincourt continued to visit.

  “Bless God and bless you, my lady,” a male voice added behind them. There stood Philippe, his blondish-brown hair tousled, the morning sunlight from behind streaming over him. His green eyes were shot through with gold. They moved from Madame de Laval to Nicole. She knew it was her for whom his words were meant. She would do anything to keep him in her life forever.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Nicole’s Desire

  That night, Nicole left the door to her bedchamber unlocked. She was dizzy with anticipation. Would he be the same? Would their feelings for each other be the same? What would she do if they weren’t? And if they weren’t, then why had she felt exactly the same way he had always made her feel when he was next to her? Thoughts swirled in her head; it was as if she were fifteen years old again. But before long the tumult of the past few days overtook her, and she slid into sleep.

  The sound of the door softly opening awakened her. From her warm bed, she watched as the tall shadow slipping into her room materialized into a man. Who else could it be but the one who occupied the innermost chamber of her heart?

  “Hello,” Philippe greeted her.

  “Hello,” she replied. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she knew it was him. She would know him anywhere, in her dreams, in real life. She hovered between both worlds, praying that what she was waking to was as real to him as it was to her.

  “Am I welcome, my lady?”

  “Have you ever not been, my lord?” The words escaped her lips before she weighed their full import. She had addressed him as her husband. Just as it had been in the past, when Philippe was near, she couldn’t think clearly. Lighting the candle on the table beside her bed, she lay back and watched as he moved toward her. At her side, he knelt and raised her dangling hand to his lips.

  Breathing in, her lungs filled with the bracing fresh smell of him. Could it be possible that nothing had changed in over two years’ time?

  “Philippe, is it you?” she whispered, reaching for him.

  “You know already,” he answered, taking her into his arms.

  His embrace crushed her; his scent overwhelmed her. It had been ages since she had felt such a dizzying blend of emotion with sensation. She had experienced strong sensations with Gerard, but the gentler emotion that accompanied it had been one of affection. She felt overwhelming love for her daughter, but the ineffable duet of sensation with emotion she had felt with Philippe alone had been something she thought she would never know again.

  “Nicole,” he whispered as he rocked her in his arms. They were larger, his wrists broader, his hands now with hair on the back of them.

  “I can’t believe it’s you,” she said, although she could. Everything about him was familiar: his voice, his scent, his eyes. Hidden depths of her that had lain dormant were springing back to life.

  “I will prove it to you then,” he answered, his hands shifting down to each side of her waist.

  The muscles of his arms grew taut. Underneath them, she quivered. She looked up to see the gold flecks in his green eyes that last she had seen in the late summer moonlight on a hillside in Amboise. Nothing has changed. Nothing.

  “Will you?” she challenged, teasingly. She caught his eyes with hers and returned the gleam he gave her. God knew she was gleaming inside. Every part of her being, hidden and visible, had sprung to attention and was waving wildly, awaiting direction from the maestro of her heart.

  “Will you let me, my lady?” he asked.

  Of course I will. How can you ask? “I’ll decide o
ne step at a time,” she said as carefully as she felt the opposite inside. Reckless abandon to pleasure was something she hadn’t experienced in over two years. She ached to move to its insistent drumbeat again.

  Philippe drew back from her, his look holding both admiration and desire.

  “Where do we begin?” he asked, his gleaming golden eyes squinting into slits.

  “Here,” she told him, as she circled the base of her throat with her right index finger.

  He replaced her hand with his and under his touch, she quivered again. Then with the ‘V’ of his thumb and index finger, he slid his hand up the front of her throat and stroked it under her jaw.

  “And then?”

  “Where do you think?” she teased.

  “My lady, two years have sculpted your subtlety,” he remarked as his hand slid to the back of her neck, reaching up under her hair.

  Without words, he had known where she wanted him to touch her next, just as he always had. He had always known the path of her desire. Indeed, he had shown it to her for the first time.

  “Two years haven’t changed you at all,” she sighed, leaning back into his muscular fingers as they worked their way into her scalp.

  “You’re right. Nothing has changed. Nothing,” he breathed, echoing her thoughts.

  She shivered. The only man who had ever known how to read her mind was back. How to keep him there was for the next day’s list of problems. For the moment, all that mattered was that he was there.

  Slowly she put her hands over his and pulled them to the top of her head. As she did, Philippe’s head slid down to her throat and below. With his tongue, he traced her neckline above her sleeping shift.

  “And next?” This time it was her turn to ask.

  “And next is my decision,” he replied, his voice low.

  “Oh, is it?” she asked cheekily.

  “What kind of game is it if only one player sets the rules?” he asked, not unreasonably.

  “My lord, I have told you I’ll decide one step at a time,” she rebuffed him. He had a point. Was it a game if two people didn’t play by the same rules? But what rules were there anywhere that were the same for men as they were for women? Nowhere in any world she had ever known.

  His warm, muscular tongue slide over her skin, and her thoughts dissolved into a place with no rules and no boundaries.

  The following morning they woke as pink dawn streaked the sky, wrapped in each other’s arms. It was Philippe who spoke first.

  “Let me leave before the house stirs and we are found out.”

  “Philippe, we are not youths anymore,” Nicole protested. “Neither of us is married. Who cares if anyone finds out?”

  “You do,” he gently reproved her. “For the sake of your future and your daughter’s future.”

  Nicole stared at him. The youth she had loved with wild abandon had grown into a man who knew how to face responsibilities, whether they were his own or those of one he loved. His sober maturity gave her the security she needed to feel as carefree as a young girl. Fresh and rested, refreshed by love, her mind danced with inspiration. Was there not a way for them to be together?

  “Philippe?”

  “Yes, my love?” He stroked a strand of hair from her cheek with one sure, muscular forefinger, exactly as he had done two years earlier.

  “What if a way presents itself for you to stay here?” It was as if time had stopped, as if it had only been a week or two they had been apart.

  “What if the sun turns blue?” He made a wry face at her.

  “Be serious!”

  “My love, it is not I who has trouble being serious. That is rather your challenge.” His hand moved up her face and tousled her hair.

  “Be still then! I’m thinking.”

  “You are good at that. Almost as good as you are at not being serious.”

  “Shush.” She closed her eyes and concentrated as her fingers drew circles on his chest. There was plentiful hair on it now, a downy field of golden brown. Grasping a handful, she pulled.

  “Ouch!”

  “I am working on an idea,” she announced.

  “You always are,” he remarked dryly. “Just like the queen.”

  Nicole smiled. “I learned that from her.”

  “Such things no one learns. It is who you are.” He gazed at her. “You are like her.”

  Nicole thought for a moment. He was right. She was like her queen. She always had been. She went after what she wanted, and she tried to get it. Sometimes she succeeded, sometimes not. But she was not a passive woman, waiting in the shadows for life to come and grab her. She went out and reached for what she wanted. And what she wanted more than anything else was this man in her life forever.

  “When must you leave for Carcassonne?” she asked.

  “Early in December.” His face fell.

  “Then give me until then to work on it.”

  “What will you do?” he asked.

  “I have a plan.”

  “My lady, you always do,” he observed.

  “Do you love me, Philippe?” she teased him.

  “I do, my lady. More than life itself.” His tone was anything but teasing.

  “And what weight would your love hold if you should find yourself equally titled as me and—” she caught herself “—and Blanche?”

  “Then my love would weigh heavily upon you with the burdens and duties of looking after a husband.” He looked at her soberly, but the twinkle in his eyes belied his serious tone.

  “Well stated, my lord.” Her heart danced to think of Philippe as her husband.

  “I am no lord.”

  “You are lord of my heart, and I will see if you might become lord of something else as well.” With a firm shove, she pushed him from her bed. Time was short, and the plan forming in her mind needed refining. She would get to work on it that day.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Spectacle

  of Us

  In the weeks that followed, the queen’s joy rippled through the court like a spring breeze. Never before had Nicole witnessed Anne of Brittany so happy. With the birth of Charles Orland, the queen had taken more care to recover her figure and relations with the king than with her newborn’s daily routine.

  But with her daughter Claude it was different. Queen Anne lavished attention on the princess, attending to every detail. Until her recent fever, the child had thrived. With Claude’s return to health, it would seem that the queen had given herself permission to relax; with her, so did the entire court.

  Nicole watched as the queen fussed and cooed over her daughter. Something told her this princess would be the child of her queen’s heart; a link to her Breton bloodline running through future rulers of France. Perhaps it was because she had almost lost her, and the queen knew childbirth loss only too well, especially the loss of infant sons. The alchemy of Queen Anne’s body and live sons hadn’t worked. It was unlikely it ever would.

  What had worked was Anne of Brittany’s ability to hold the eyes and hearts of her husbands. She held King Louis XII’s esteem even more so than she had held Charles’s, who had also loved her. But Louis had given her sovereign control over her ancestral lands of Brittany, something Charles had not been entirely willing to do. Nicole speculated it was because King Louis had known Queen Anne as a seven-year-old duchess being groomed and educated to take over the throne of Brittany one day. He had seen with his own eyes that his wife had been raised to rule. With a temperament suited to leadership, he had known she would wish to carry out the mandate with which she had been charged from birth. A wise husband, he had not tried to interfere with what she had been born to do.

  “How is my sweet beauty?” Nicole overheard the king ask as he offered a finger to the princess one mild day in late November. The month had been unseasonably warm, as if Claude’s recovery had prolonged the harvest season. It wasn’t just the queen who appeared besotted with her child. The king himself couldn’t stay away from the nursery, popping in sev
eral times a day to visit his daughter, and even more surprisingly, to take her from the wet nurse and allow her to gurgle and drool on his shoulder. He seemed not in the slightest perturbed that Claude had not been a son. Plans had already been laid for his daughter’s betrothal to Francis, Duke de Valois, his cousin Louise de Savoy’s son, who stood next in line to the throne, should he and Anne produce no sons. Whether a son came to them or not, he would see a child of his on the throne of France.

  Peeking out from behind the curtain that separated the alcove from the main room, Nicole’s heart warmed at the sight of the queen giving the king a radiant smile.

  As she took in the sweet scene, Nicole felt arms steal around her; a hard familiar body pinned her from behind.

  “She is the spectacle of us,” Philippe’s voice whispered into her ear. “New tunes of joy and a mighty love.”

  Nicole melted back into him then turned, brushing noses with the man she had loved since womanhood had first awakened in her. Philippe de Bois’s eyes bored into hers, and she knew the mighty love he spoke of was not just Queen Anne’s alone.

  Together they peered around the curtain at the king and queen. It was as if the love they both felt for their child deepened the love between them. Nicole could sense further that the regard that the king held for the queen was based not just on the love born of their married years, but of the feelings they had held for each other in their youth.

  Philippe motioned to Nicole to follow him outside. As she did, she thought of the unshakeable bond between her monarchs. She could guess at its depth and its unassailability, because she felt it herself with the one who was now leading her out into the garden. He needed a moment. She needed a lifetime. Did he as well?

  The air outside was surprisingly mild. They strolled to the end of the rectangular garden then turned the corner. As they passed behind a bush, Philippe took her hand.

  She giggled, just as she had two years earlier when they had escaped time and again to the hill behind the stables in Amboise. Feeling as light as Petard’s breath when the horse had nuzzled her, she turned to Philippe.